DISQUS

DGentry · 2 months ago

I didn't have time to write a short comment, so I wrote a long one instead.

I believe there are two types of comments, three if you include spam/trolling.

1. A quick "I agree" comment, equivalent to applause in other venues, is very short. It might be several sentences but still distills down to "I agree" or "Good job".

2. Actual feedback and contribution takes longer to write. Its easy to type a bunch of thoughts and hit Submit, distilling those thoughts to concise statements takes longer. These comments might contain more insight, but often benefit from an editing pass.

I find Disqus very useful in this regard. Many times I have gone back to edit excessively wordy comments, trimming them to a more concise subset. Like this one, for example.

Mark Essel · 2 months ago

I applaud this comment.

It can take a few minutes for me to write a page long blog post, and hours to edit it, add proper links and reorganize it.

fredwilson · 2 months ago

You need zemanta to add the links. I cut at least ten minutes of blogging time by using zemanta to embed the customary links

ShanaC · 2 months ago

Disqus does an amazing job at this.

Also I do think those "I agree" comments either can add nuance to the discussion if they explain why, or for those new, lead to a huge moral boost. It's important to add them, because it give a new flavor or direction to the discussion.

terrycojones · 2 months ago

BTW, I heard an interesting remark/claim in a Yahoo Developer Network meeting here in Barcelona a few months ago. The speaker, Christian Heilmann, said that in China long blog posts are much preferred over short ones. Apparently they're regarded as being more considered, more trustworthy, etc. An interesting cultural difference, if true.

fredwilson · 2 months ago

Now I know why avc is blocked in china

William Mougayar · 2 months ago

Churchill said something like this: "You want me to speak for an hour? I'll start now. You want me to give a 10 min speech? I need a week to prepare".

JLM · 2 months ago

I was given a DVD recording of all of Churchill's speeches which I listen to when driving long distances. I always find it inspiring beyond belief.

"When the eagles are silent, the parrots will jabber."

William Mougayar · 2 months ago

Indeed.
In his silence, we are the parrots echoing his wisdom? :-)

Roger Toennis · 2 months ago

Wow! What a great idea for brain stimulation.

This made me immediately think of the Supertramp's "Even in the Quietest Moments" cut "Fool's Overture" where Roger Hodgson and Rick Davies trade vocals with cuts from Winston Churchill's "We Shall Fight On The Beaches" speech.

My thought - The ability to summarize effectively requires one to dive deeply into the deepest waters of the darkest pools of complexity and then return to the surface with illusive truths you found in those depths firmly clenched between your teeth.

Mark Essel · 2 months ago

Excellent quote William, and so pertinent. So meaning and hence value really are in brief messages. I'll say one thing, 140 characters is not enough to have a good two way conversation.

William Mougayar · 2 months ago

I'm not sure what the right limit is for comments. The owner should be able to set a limit they like to enforce. Hopefully @disqus is listening.

ShanaC · 2 months ago

One thing: This actually might be a bad idea long term. Just because this blog is written in English doesn't mean that Disqus shouldn't think about selling a Japanese or Chinese version one day. Limiting the amounts of characters would be a bad idea due to how these languages are encoded.

William Mougayar · 2 months ago

I didn't think as far as the translation part.
But the length of comments could be a function of total # of comments on a given blog, i.e. Total # of comments X length of comments. If I had a blog with 100+ comments, I might limit the length of comments, but if I'm getting 10 comments/day then length wouldn't be a problem.

rickg · 2 months ago

But why restrict the length of a comment? The storage space for a comment is negligible as is the bandwidth used to deliver the comment when someone views the page. I can't see any reason for someone to restrict how other people comment aside from a need for control.

Thorsten Claus · 2 months ago

It's much like bar talk - you can either engage right now, or you craft a response letter and give it to the bar keeper a week later, just in case the same crowd comes in again and is still interested. Few people have the rigor and exercise to write concise. I'm not one of them.

Most blog posts are somewhat short lived (sorry, Fred, not yours, of course ;)), more like an invitation to think or disqus (when will Merriam-Webster finally correct their wrong spelling?!). Some blog authors even move on and never catch up on a topic - so if you're crafting a response that you find important, and you make it short and concise, it might never get read or even considered in a discussion ("yeah, nice comment, but that entry is over five days old now!").

fredwilson · 2 months ago

He is the most quotable person ever

im2b_dl · 2 months ago

beware the people who say limit comment length... anyone who has a degree in small group communications and more specifically dialectic research will tell you (especially in a format where you can easily skip inhospitably long comments and most often do) limiting comment length is the first steps/sign to hurting your R&D and sign of a person's relationship, capability, and willingness to fully understand the subject. 140 characters is great in a massive pool of non-specific discussions ...it is not a good road map for open search for truth in the dialectic...which is (I would hope) the point in a comments feature.

ShanaC · 2 months ago

I'm reading "Why art cannot be taught" and one of the first things they lobby at the crtique process is essentially this. You can't do a dialect per person in a critique if each person has about 5 minutes to speak.

im2b_dl · 2 months ago

then they miss the point of the small group "dialectic" It is not about finding truth by responding to every person (although it could be if someone so chooses). That would set a bar that we only find truth by responding to everyone on the planet. The internet comments format allows people to digest what they can...or move on. People should self tighten...(as 95% of commenters do) but to limit responses is destructive to the process in a small group quest for truth and discovery. That is what the Greeks meant by truth through the dialectic. Gatekeepers are great but in a commentary format where people (like a market) self regulate their consumption... it is probably only needed for control of overbearing conversation and setting up (like directing a film) a "safe" environment for the discussion to take place. ...now a chat room'd be...different thing. imo

im2b_dl · 2 months ago

ShanaC · 2 months ago

I need to come back to this. I'll edit this comment later. Or bother you off line. Talking about the dialectic of critique structure is difficult. It's something I want to blog about away from here, especially why I think it would be valuable to programmers/engineers. Just you comment happened to remind me of that book and how important time is to the dialectic process.

Dan Lewis · 2 months ago

Both you and Mr. Hacker News are correct. The two are not mutually exclusive.

Good writers are succinct. Others require verbosity to express the same ideas. Most people are not good writers, and therefore require long posts in order to be qualitatively acceptable. This isn't optimal, for the reasons you already explained, but that does not mean the correlation nor argument (to not limit comment lenghts) is incorrect.

Mark Essel · 2 months ago

I'd like to chime as a writer who needs the "longer comment" space to convey meaning. Maybe a year from now after blogging/commenting daily I'll have developed the fine art of compressed writing. But at this point, I still need a few paragraphs to let an idea breathe.

fredwilson · 2 months ago

That was short and sweet

Mark Essel · 2 months ago

O_o
Hey Fred, is the ustream of the talk saved somewhere I can look at?

Mike O'Horo · 2 months ago

Mark Twain: "There are no great writers; only great re-writers." Few people can express a cogent flow extemporaneously, if only because, even if you're commenting on a topic about which you're expert, respecting the spirit of most discussions obligates you to formulate thoughts in a form relevant to the posting to which you respond.

I once had to write display ad copy in which design space limited me to 50 words. The 400-word version came out in 20 mins.; the 200-word version took a couple of days; distilling it to 50 high-impact words took most of a week. Expressing something of significance (which I trust is most posters' goal) succinctly is a gift; doing so quickly is truly rare.

So, give people the space they need. The market for ideas is governed by the same forces as with any other market -- demand. If people want to consume your written ideas, they will. David Ogilvy proved 50 years ago in "Ogilvy on Advertising" that copy length is immaterial; if your message is compelling, people will read all of it.

ShanaC · 2 months ago

It's a cultural shift, and it's one that's been happening over quite a long period of time.

I blame Strunk and White. I have a couple of copies around. There are also a number of free 1st edition ones floating around on the Web, since they are out of copyright. E.B. White is a wonderful writer. He recommends concision. Considering it is a classic text about writing, and is recommended by nearly everyone...

The University of Chicago, for whatever their reasons, decided it was going to study the issue. They gave people texts and asked what made them confusing, and changed them until they eren't confusing. They also asked people what made texts sound "smart," among other issues. They ended having a professor named Joseph Williams, who wrote this book http://www.amazon.com/Style-Clarity-Chicago-Wri... , create a course about to write, called the Little Red School House. The book mentions the following fact.

The length of the sentence or paragraph is moot. What people should do is try and tell a story with their writing, from the level of the sentence up. Repeatability of the same theme, concept, even words help people read.

This skill is what made earlier writers of the 18th and 19th century successful, despite seeming dense. This skill means that numerous clauses can be strung together cohesively.

So commenting ability might be linked to storytelling ability rather than length. A one liner seems easier because there is not much to repeat. A long comment is good if it is cohesive.

JLM · 2 months ago

The real question is whether you are providing simply a "blog" or more of a "salon" --- the difference being whether your personal writing is the focus or whether you are providing a provocative topic and a pleasant forum which draws smart folks with informed opinions who can provide excellent commentary and education and experience to the discussion. And, hey, sometimes even a bit of wit!

My main attraction to your blog is the quality of the topics, you personally (I am a huge fan, you seem to be a genuinely nice guy with an extraordinary ability to communicate and to keep the conversation going) and the superb quality of the people, voices, expertise, breadth, depth, knowledge, creativity and thinking of your audience.

Isn't the "retained equity" of your blog really its huge worldwide audience of smart people who have come together in a civilized manner to hear your voice and intelligently discuss sometimes provocative topics?

If I could have anything personally, it would be more thoughtful and insightful words rather than rationing the genius. I want to know the life story and experience of every single one of your many extraordinary followers. But then I collect people.

Freddie, babe, face it you have created a monster. Let it roar! You are the Jay Leno of intelligent business commentary. Work it.

When good ideas wrestle there are no losers only stronger ideas! I come to AVC for the ideas and the people who have them and I want to hear more of them.

So, put me down for the long commentaries, please. Thanks.

kidmercury · 2 months ago

"You are the Jay Leno of intelligent business commentary. Work it."

in the past three days, fred has been compared to jay leno, cal ripken jr, and james brown (the soul singer) on his blog. lol!

JLM · 2 months ago

The Godfather of Soul, the Prince of Persistence and the King of Comedy --- nice accolades! And you are his bouncer, side kick, etc. Nice gig, good benefits?

fredwilson · 2 months ago

nah, all i give him is a hard time

fredwilson · 2 months ago

All flattering comps for sure

dantinpa · 2 months ago

JLM, you seem to be the exception. You sometimes write long comments, but I look forward to reading them. Most others with long comments, I have learned to skip over.

JLM · 2 months ago

Dan, it is the curse of being both a blowhard and a fast typist. LOL

Thanks!

Keenan · 2 months ago

Comments, like anything else should provide value. The value in a comment should be measured in

1) it's relevancy to the topic
2) it's ability to keep a reader engaged
3) it's ability to be crisp, concise and easy to read
and most importantly 4) it has to add to the conversation.

Short or long if it can accomplish those four things it's a good comment.

My perspective; A really long comment loses me on #2 and #3 I don't have time to read a 4000 word comment and I don't believe it will be concise or crisp

Tereza Nemessanyi · 2 months ago

Mark Twain said, “I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.”

In consulting we called it a "low ink to page ratio". It's hard, but is the goal.

Avoid passive sentence structures at all costs. It's like a limp handshake -- ewwww. A sentence requires a subject and an active verb. If you can't find one, it's not worth saying.

And funny? It jets a comment from good to great.

Emre Sokullu · 2 months ago

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Kate Brodock · 2 months ago

Agreed Fred. I think there's a bottom cutoff, don't leave two-word responses unless those two words rock. But, fact is, you get limited time for readers to get through a blog post (organize, be concise, yadda yadda)... let alone the comment section! You have a better chance of having people digest your point if you can get it across easily for them.

Plus, why not leverage your long-winded comment into a blog post of our own? As response somewhere else?

Adam Schwartz · 2 months ago

Word.

fredwilson · 2 months ago

:)

LIAD · 2 months ago

Setting min/max comment lengths seems a bit worthy to me.

Comments should encourage/stimulate and provide a forum for conversation/discussion - making commenters jump through hoops stymies that.

Short succint points are best - allowing readers to zip through and absorb opinions quickly and efficiently.

If someone wants to write a thesis long comment, they are doing it because they have something to say and believe they are adding value/contributing to the discussion - Good luck to them.

Reality though is that with attention scarcity as it is their comment length might have "priced them out the market"

DaveinHackensack · 2 months ago

One idea that might encourage brevity from commenters would be an app that lets other readers tag a comment with a red "Z" at the point where they started to zone out reading it. So when a commenter prone to droning on starts seeing the second paragraph of his five paragraph opus peppered with little red Z's, he may write more concisely next time.

fredwilson · 2 months ago

I wonder if they'll be too zoned out to tag at that moment

Hannes Tydén · 2 months ago

+1

Anne Fernando · 2 months ago

I would have to agree that comments should be kept to a minimum - in fact, just enough to elaborate a point. Given I read tech blogs and enjoy reading the comments that people leave, I usually find myself skipping the lengthier ones.

fredwilson · 2 months ago

I dot that on other blogs but not here. I feel like I should read every comment

icode · 2 months ago

I don't like to waste time reading other people's drivel.

bijan · 2 months ago

Agreed :)

alan patrick · 2 months ago

Agree. Blog posts are like sketches, not paintings imho, and comments should be too. If I have more than 2-3 paragraphs of comment/opinion I know its time to write it up on my own blog and link to it (though some see that linking as rude 'netiquette).

Also, I find most long comments are full of waffle - the longer they are the more careful editing they need and typically that doesn't happen in comment writing.

I could go on...... :D

phillipbaker · 2 months ago

The line between posts and comments can definitely blur. Posting a comment keeps it in the thread but linking back arguably attaches you comment more closely to you so that people that follow you (your blog) are more likely to see it. We need a better way navigate people and content.

fredwilson · 2 months ago

Writing it up and linking to it in the comments is best practices in my opinion

farhanlalji · 2 months ago

Think shorter comment allowances will ensure people focus their thoughts, 140 characters anyone?

Adrian Bye · 2 months ago

twitter length comments would be an interesting idea to test; it could integrate somehow with twitter.

ShanaC · 2 months ago

That's technically reactions. They're separated here because most of them are the something like the following

"Great Post on AVC http :// bit.ly .com bunch of numbers "

Not very useful to the conversation.

Carl Rahn Griffith · 2 months ago

That would never catch on ;-)

William Mougayar · 2 months ago

Agreed. Longer comments should be the very exception. I would favor limiting # of char on comments. One should think about the readers who's job is to consume the comments, and not be selfish and ramble on.
- Disqus could provide us comment length stats- e.g. 4 comments /day, ave: length 300 char, highest/lowest.
- it would be nice to have some threading or semantic correlations between comments (I think Huff-Po is pioneering that)

fredwilson · 2 months ago

Disqus is building an awesome stats package so we'll have that data soon

William Mougayar · 2 months ago

Cool. :) Chartbeat for the consumer? sounds like a good product extension idea.

Mark Essel · 2 months ago

Semantic filtering/organizing any social media is of course a wonderful idea. I need to convince a groovy open social media provider to sit with the Zemanta guys to integrate semantic into a social pipeline.

farhanlalji · 2 months ago

If you can't say it within a certain length write a post, comment with an intro to the post and link off to it. That way other readers don't have to sift through if they don't want to.

ShanaC · 2 months ago

I've been recommended to do this. I have strong mixed feelings about this. I sometimes lose track of the conversation and what I want to say. Blogging for me develops a wholly different mindframe of what I want to think and discover. I consider these the comments and the posts almost as if they are different spaces. As what I can parallel them to a physical plant, such as a building, or some normal everyday act like drinking water, not sure.

I'm thinking of calling this the "front door, yard, living space problem. Fred here happens to very nice and really likes people commenting. In my mind, if this were a physical house, he essentially has an open door policy to the bottom floor. That's the best I can get. Yet there are also close parallels to old fashioned town halls from the 1800s. It's a neither here nor there medium when it comes to people.

I happen to have a personal preference to like engaging with people and thinking through issues with them through the process of the dialectic. Writing alone is a good way to sort out what I think is important, and what I think. Writing with people happens to be the way I discover important issues that I want to think about that are not semi-personal (certain points in life are universal, such as what to do).

For me, the fruitful set of questions so far are: "What are blogging spaces, social media spaces? why are we drawn to writing in them in communities in the first place? How are they parallel and not parallel to real versions of discussion spaces, both historical and current? How do we want them to develop so we get the maximum value both monetarily and as a society out of them?"

I don't know. And it's an answer I sort of need.

JLM · 2 months ago

I endorse wholly your observation that writing is a way to organize your thinking. For over a quarter of a century I have kept meeting and phone notes in Moleskine journals. I write down notes to organize my day. I write outlines of white papers and such before I compose them. I can type like a wizard (my mother made me learn to type when I was just a little kid) and it helps me think clearly.

When I was in the Army, I was a General's aide de camp and wrote his daily log. It was great fun to read what I had written years later and to see the view that a 25-year old Captain had of a General's work. While I fancied myself quite a worldly dangerous sort, I was so sweetly and innocently naive that today it makes me chuckle uncontrollably. I took myself so seriously. LOL

Treat yourself to a bunch of Moleskine notebooks and write away.

ShanaC · 2 months ago

I'm that age (roughly) now. And I'm aware enough that I know I'm the naive one here. :)

I wonder how writing those logs or your meetings as opposed to writing down say your more private thoughts affect your writing process. I'm growing up/grown up in a period where there definitely is a growth towards fluidity of collaboration because of the omnipresence of computers and then the internet and mobile phones. I totally understand why crowdsourcing makes sense in order to create something. It's just a concept that I grew up with.

It is one of the reasons Disqus frustrates me. And Twitter. I'm used to a fluidity of sharing, and a variety of privacies, from super private to total out there-ness. There is no real way to say, let only certain people comment or see certain things in parts of a twitter stream, or in parts of Disqus, if you want to run multiple spaces.

JLM · 2 months ago

First, let me admit that I have never really progressed beyond age 25 mentally. My wife questions whether I have actually ever attained that age lobbying for 17 as more likely.

But let me seriously say that young people today are infinetly more sophisticated and engaged in the world --- if they are paying attention --- simply because of their ability to communicate (verbally, cell phone, IM, SMS, twitter, e-mail, etc. etc etc) and because of the quality of education and because of the flow of information of all types.

I envy my children's facility to communicate with anybody about anything.

One of the toughest things in life is to develop your public, private and truly private/weird personas and keep them vibrant and separate.

There are some things in life that should be so completely yours and only yours as to be a source of energy. I can admit to one that is just modestly weird --- I love to meticulously restore vintage Stanley-Bailey wood planes. I pay nothng for them. They are worth nothing when restored. They give me the greatest pleasure in the world to hold --- they are very heavy and well built arguably the best built hand tool in the history of the world --- because I feel as though I am drawing the energy of 120 years of craftsmanship from them. I wonder what carpenter or cabinetmaker used them and what he built and I steal their psychic energy. When I finish one, I feel completely energized and refreshed. Then I use them for paper weights for my desk.

At the end of the day, every time you write you have to tell someone a story. Even yourself.

terrycojones · 2 months ago

Hi Shana. You should take a look at FluidDB. It's built in part to allow people and apps to work more fluidly with data - including addressing the kinds of things you find frustrating about Twitter and Disqus. It's not an app - people are just starting to build apps on top of it. It offers a more natural way for apps and people to work with information. We released it just 6 weeks ago, so it's early days yet. A good place to start reading is http://blogs.fluidinfo.com/fluidDB (e.g., the Truly Social Data post).

fredwilson · 2 months ago

Have you tried Wave yet shana? I have not but it may have some promise for you

ShanaC · 2 months ago

Thanks to someone here, I may have gotten an invite, even though I signed up the first day after the talk....

Online or offline review?(Not that I am not behind on those already) Consumer or for companies? You know me when I kvetch about products, and I already have certain suspicions about the Googleplex based off their design orientation.

Carl Rahn Griffith · 2 months ago

Communication doesn't always need to have an objective/reward in mind. Often it's suffice to simply be cathartic. Engaging in the stream of dialogue within stimulating blogs such as this provoke a visceral sense of community engagement and that gives satisfaction, even if one disagrees with the message/s therein.

Sometimes messages DO have a cynical objective in mind (plugging a product, massaging an ego, patronising others, etc) and they are pretty obvious, and easily skipped. The rest is generally simple, altruistic, thoughtful chatter. Perfect.

ShanaC · 2 months ago

I know. It's one of the reasons I have made some very disturbing as well as some very lovely drawings in a folk art style + a little de kooning thrown in for measure.
And started to expand into some other territories before realizing it wasn't the direction I wanted to go in for my BA. Good for private work, not so good if I have to put up a show with my thesis class in June.
Oddly, the training to get to that point has been extremely helpful here *shrug*

fredwilson · 2 months ago

Idle chatter is rarely idle

Jane Quigley · 2 months ago

I don't believe in restricting length, as sometimes the comments are even better than the original post, but I do believe in being as concise as possible.

JoeYevoli · 2 months ago

I agree. It reminds me of an idea we follow in our company, "It's not done when you can't add anything else, it's done with when you can't take anything else away." Simplicity at it's best. Sometimes less is more.

fredwilson · 2 months ago

Ooh. I love your rule. Reduce reduce reduce

terrycojones · 2 months ago

Probably everyone prefers short and sweet if the comment content can be conveyed concisely (bonus points for alliteration, of course).

But given that it's very easy to skip comments that are too long or not interesting, and that some reactions need to be detailed or are complex or nuanced etc., I think it would be a sad thing to see longer comments discouraged. For some of us, there are relatively few places one can go to read considered opinion on subjects that come up regularly in blogs such as Fred's. The short "I agree" and "Great post" comments are like noise (I mean literally, just like applause also makes a noise), at least to me.

I could say more. I think I already hold the world record for comment length on this blog (See http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2007/09/andreessen-on-p...) though, so you'd probably expect that. I think it's a bit of a pity that things that are more than a few paragraphs are now considered "too long". I of course had to write about that too: http://blogs.fluidinfo.com/terry/2007/06/14/its...

If (literally) thought-provoking stuff appears on this (or another) blog or in its comments, where else are we to take those thoughts? The whole point (or at least almost all the value) is precisely in the thoughtfulness and in the blog comment system giving us a forum. Some of us can't take it offline, or get a room :-)

fredwilson · 2 months ago

We need disqus' new stats service (in dev) to determine if you are actually the owner of the longest coimment terry

phillipbaker · 2 months ago

Concise writing is probably best for most forms of Web content because it costs less attention, so short, high-impact posts are the best deal you can get.

fredwilson · 2 months ago

Yup. I admire it when somone can say something impactful in a few lines of text

im2b_dl · 2 months ago

good. ; )

Ben Atlas · 2 months ago

Most people are not really able to write a coherent paragraph, so a long comment signals a person who can write (and even think) but not always does it signal a superior or interesting content. Same with short comments.

LIAD · 2 months ago

Announcing the launch of DisqTwit - decentralised blog commenting platform.

If you cant make your point in 140 characters its obviously not worth making

fredwilson · 2 months ago

Portfolio company synergy!

Mark Essel · 2 months ago

I'm terribly long winded. But I'm working on the concise thing. It's an artform to succinctly state an opinion on a complex topic while supporting it with rational evidence.

I prefer long juicy comments chock full of awesome. Most folks side with you Fred and prefer short and sweet.

jeremystein · 2 months ago

i am definitely biased towards scanning through shorter comments and im sure most people are.

i usually don't pay attention to length though. i think the amount of replies is the best indicator of quality. conversation should be the metric. not length or votes.

i am certain i miss some great comments every once in a while because thats not a perfect system.

phillipbaker · 2 months ago

Great idea. The total number of replies under each sub-thread is definitely worth considering as a metric to filter comments. The number of people in any given sub-thread would probably be good too.

jasonspalace · 2 months ago

personally try to keep them as short as possible as means of respecting author's time. but sometimes they're long, and imho no limit should be imposed. it's awesome when a few words can make the impact of a book.

Nik · 2 months ago

Maybe, thats why Twitter is so popular? 140 Characters actually helps you process info faster than if the constraint was removed. In a world where attention is the currency, the 140 character limit forces one to be economical with other people's attention.

That was more than 140 characters...

fredwilson · 2 months ago

But not a lot more

terrycojones · 2 months ago

Seeing as the original study (http://bit.ly/ZxdAW) on quality/length ironically doesn't allow comments, I'll comment on it here. Lukas (the author) observes that people might be simply rating longer comments higher simply because they're longer - i.e., they don't actually find them any better, they just think for whatever reason that they should be rated higher. You could test whether this was the case by using a Markov process to generate a selection of nonsense long (and short) comments based on text of other comments. I think the results would be interesting. It's quite possible that short Markov comments would be rated highly - perhaps due to their quirky / amusing / provocative nature, perhaps due to alignment with the Twitter zeitgeist.

John A Arkansawyer · 2 months ago

With rare exceptions, comments longer than the original post are guilty until proven innocent.

fredwilson · 2 months ago

Hehe

Ari Herzog · 2 months ago

No two blog posts are alike and no two comments should be alike, either. Who cares if either is short or long so long as the author enjoys writing it, the reader enjoys reading it, and comments are whipped cream?

ShanaC · 2 months ago

A tough one, I tend to write longer comments, though I've noticed they've been getting shorter over time.

And this is with trying to write succicntly and with how to write books. it depends on the goal. Sometimes there is a lot of thought to unpack, sometimes it is the time of day (if you are later in the game and need to add then, you are going to have to add more in order to feel more relevant), etc. Comments are as much a reflection of the way people think and a person's personality as anything else.

I would say say this, do practice cutting down. Just from practical experience.....(They have gotten somewhat shorter)

fredwilson · 2 months ago

Shorter and better in my opinion

Lauren · 2 months ago

I'm a general believer in brevity and often find it much more challenging to be concise. This has generally delivered -- "Never write when you can speak, Never speak when you can nod, And Never nod when you can wink."

fredwilson · 2 months ago

Great quote. Who is it from?

Steven Kane · 2 months ago

Brevity is the soul of wit.

But A.D.D. is not wit.

The inimitable Mike Judge says it best, in his oddly under-appreciated classic, Idiocracy - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy

reecepacheco · 2 months ago

Shakespeare. Nice.

fredwilson · 2 months ago

Disusing is awfully close to disgusting. Hmmm

reecepacheco · 2 months ago

Not sure I'm following you?

reecepacheco · 2 months ago

ha, never mind, figured it out. do you mean 'Disqusing' is awfully close to disgusting?

i hear a marketing line in here... maybe: Sometimes discussions get disgusting. No longer with Disqus.

fredwilson · 2 months ago

This is the second time a comment thread turned into a marketing brainstorming session for disqus

kidmercury · 2 months ago

idiocracy is brilliant. it reveals a lot of truth about the agenda of the criminal network that runs everything, albeit thinly disguised via comedy.

Derek Tumolo · 2 months ago

Thinly disguised via terrible comedy. That movie was awful.

DaveinHackensack · 2 months ago

It didn't hold together, but the throw away details about the evolution of corporate brands in a dysgenic future were great. It would have been better if he skipped the overt comedic plot and just lingered over those details.

DaveinHackensack · 2 months ago

It wasn't about the agenda of a criminal network; it was about the long term effects of the not-smart out breeding the smart. This was actually a big concern among the good and great a hundred years ago, when eugenics was mainstream.

kidmercury · 2 months ago

the primary agenda of the criminal network is eugenics. they want to reduce the human population by 80% - 95%. they also want to dumb down the human population and create basically two species, a dumb slave one and a super race that has merged with machines. ray kurzeweil's technology books talk about the merger with machines stuff.

in the movie idiocracy you may recall there was a jail guard character played by justin long (the "cool" mac guy in the pc vs mac commercials). his character in the movie, like everyone set in the futuristic world, is tattooed with a bar code. luke wilson does not have this bar code and justin long reports him as a "unscannable." this is an allusion to the criminals' agenda to microchip the entire human population so that they can be scanned, tracked, and controlled remotely. once the population is fully microchipped they will even more fully be easily controlled. microchipping the population is already well underway; check the archive on the subject on my blog.

almost all kooks are very concerned about the swine flu vaccine for a variety of reasons, it's probably the leading topic out in kook land (G20 being a close second). however some kooks, including internationally renowned kook icon david icke, claim that the swine flu vaccination will include an invisible implantable microchip when injected (check icke's great article on the swine flu stuff). implantable microchips have been patented by IBM and are already being used.

the eugenics agenda you speak of was advanced by the criminal network that runs everything. they've been at this agenda for a long time; in fact i would argue they've been at it since literally the beginning of the human species on earth (although that viewpoint is more debatable). they financed hitler as part of their eugenics agenda too. before they were trying to sell eugenics openly, although now that it is widely shunned, they try to do it more subtlely, and use words like "transhumanism" instead of eugenics. same agenda though and the same folks behind it.

the movie "endgame" by alex jones is available free on google video and goes through the eugenics agenda in detail. a bibliography including citations for all the evidence presented in the movie can be found at endgamethemovie.com.

fredwilson · 2 months ago

I can't subscribe to any of this kookery but I am happy that you share it with us kid. I'm waiting for the moment that I slap my forehead and say 'that kid is right'. Hasn't happened yet

kidmercury · 2 months ago

lol, well boss, it all starts with 9/11 truth. like i told albert when he tried to beef with me on kookology, we can't discuss eugenics if we are still living in ignorance of 9/11 truth.

also as you know i was a permabear before it was hip and trendy. the ability to see the economic crisis coming came not from special powers but from paying attention to real news, i.e. kookology.

fredwilson · 2 months ago

That's one difference between us. I'm a permabull with some exceptions

zackmansfield · 2 months ago

Don't see this as an either/or, right/wrong type question. It's not too different from any interpersonal group communication - haven't we all been in board meetings, conference calls, etc in which there is the "long-winded/little value add person" ; the "short and sweet but tons of value person"; "the verbose but eloquent so it works person"; and the "so blunt he/she adds no value" person?

In general, I believe short/sweet wins on the web due to the way we read things digitally. That being said, the beauty of the comment stream is that I can choose as the reader how much to invest in reading/interacting - and find I do this differently daily based on available time!

fredwilson · 2 months ago

I love your characterization of the four board members.

I think I am the blunt verbose but tons of value person :)

reecepacheco · 2 months ago

I think of comments as brief by definition. A limitation here isn't necessary - this community does a decent job of curtailing their comments, except when necessary to go on in length.

"...what I prefer is when someone can make their point quickly and concisely, ideally with a bit of wit thrown in for good measure."

The ability to communicate quickly and effectively is so important, especially in today's hyper-micro-nano-tumbling-twittering-disqusing world...

rubken · 2 months ago

Comment length, from the commenter's point of view, is a risk/reward scenario. If my comment is long fewer people will pay attention to it (perhaps even in proportion to the length) but short comments can compromise the intended message if taken to far.
There are probably audiences for both long and short comments. I wonder to what degree they overlap on various sites?

kidmercury · 2 months ago

all goes back to you being a blog star, boss. i actually like long comments in the right context -- right context being a smart, niche community that is small. once a blog star gets too big the community starts to lose some of its value -- the social experience it provides. that is why i think there are limits to community sizes, and those limits are the ones worth watching and perhaps more revelatory of the kinds of restrictions freeconomics imposes.

in sum i think appropriateness of comment length is inversely proportional to size of community.

Sanjay · 2 months ago

I think comment length should not be restricted. Most people who take the trouble to write long comments have a lot to say(duh!), much of it pertinent in my experience. Short comments also have their value, no doubt.
Once we have a nice NLP engine that can do sentiment analysis, topic extraction and guide us to the most interesting comments, I am sure we can have the best of both worlds - ADD and the ability to discuss at length :)

David Semeria · 2 months ago

The shrtr the bttr

timraleigh · 2 months ago

Agreed.

Kevin Marshall · 2 months ago

A little tangent to the topic but I've been thinking about building a game based on top of disqus comments for awhile now...the basic idea would be to award points for comments that generate responses (or discussions if you will)...the hope being that the game helps inspire people to leave even more engaging comments around the various blogs they read...

I haven't had time to think through it enough yet (and really no time to develop it yet)...but it might be a fun experiment to play with and if nothing else, a good reason to dig into the Disqus API a bit more eh?

Now back to your regularly scheduled program... ;-)

fredwilson · 2 months ago

You should talk to daniel about this. He's keen to experiment with this idea and a third party app on top of their api might be a great way to do that

DaveinHackensack · 2 months ago

This suggests another app for Disqus, assuming they aren't working on it already: a way to rate commenters across different blogs, and extend their allowed comment length proportionately to their ratings. E.g., if Susie has an average rating of 9.5 out of 10 on the posts she leaves on AVC.com, then she gets to write longer comments -- both here and on any other blog that uses Disqus.

It's not exactly the same animal, but I'm taking a different tack with comments on a message board that's going to be part of a site I am launching. On that message board, premium members will be able to rank comments with 1 to 5 stars; the highest-rated comments will float to the top, and the lowest-rated comments will get deleted. I'm limiting the ranking power to premium (i.e. paying) members to discourage folks from registering with multiple e-mails to manipulate the ranking system.

Mike O'Horo · 2 months ago

I love it.

facebook-689312154 · 2 months ago

In the spirit of short comments, I will try to keep mine that way.
It's not about comment length, it's about curation. That's what we do at TrueSlant.com.
Our 200 contributors, all knowledgeable about their "angles," curate comments from their audience members. They "Call Out" comments that further the dialogue. Those comments sit beneath the post on page load (the entirety of the comment string resides one level below an "All Comments" tab). The post's author can respond, and all True/Slant contributors have free reign to comment on other contributor pages, to either the authors of those posts or to their audience members.
The result is a rewarding three-way dialogue that I believe trumps the sweaty mosh pit of comments on most sites. I'm often asked why True/Slant comments are "so good." That's the reason. If you want to be "Called Out," you need to bring your A-Game. That also raises the level of commenting found in the "All Comments" tab.
There is something more here. This type of comment system is like being in an old Newsroom, or the old bars that News people (myself included) once frequented. Except, now the audience is free to come in. And one more thing: the information and context extracted in these three-way exchanges is replacing all the old media reporting constructs: inverted pyramid writing, nugget or nut grafs, linear story-telling.
For us at True/Slant, it's one piece of building "The New Newsroom."

DaveinHackensack · 2 months ago

"This type of comment system is like being in an old Newsroom, or the old bars that News people (myself included) once frequented. Except, now the audience is free to come in."

Your newsroom simile is interesting, given that (from what I've seen) most bloggers who come from a traditional journalism background aren't big on comments. Consider, for example, the Atlantic's bloggers. Long-time journos Goldberg, Fallows, and Sullivan don't even allow comments; Crook moderates them before they appear; but Coates and McCardle (both of whom, I think, were more established as bloggers than journalists before their Atlantic gigs) both have vibrant comment threads.

fredwilson · 2 months ago

You've got more of a methodology than I do but that is what I try to do here as well

RichardForster · 2 months ago

I agree I prefer shorter, to the point comments yet I know I'm verbose! I would disagree with a limit though, I think your readers are able to filter what they want to read and whether they want read a longer comment

Why not ask Disqus to incorporate a character counter field? We put one in our web to sms product to help people work out when they have hit 160 characters, at least it might give people an idea what length their posts are as they writing them.

fredwilson · 2 months ago

That's a nice idea

Michael F. Martin · 2 months ago

A more interesting measure of comment quality would control for comment length.

Ryan Graves · 2 months ago

Damn, I really thought I could be the funny guy who leaves the 10 paragraph response, didn't get to it quick enough. I guess I'll improve the quality and say this...

It's not the size of the boat, but the motion of the ocean.

Cheers,
Ryan

dantinpa · 2 months ago

A comment should not include more than X% of the # of characters as the original post. What is X?

Can you measure the character count for posts with a high likes?

Checked my disqus profile to see how long the posts were that I "liked" - does not seem like this is possible.

Should you combine thoughts in a single reply or post them separately?

Ryan Graves · 2 months ago

Further thought:

I do like when you take a thought from a comment thread and write a whole post on it. If it's a worthy thought, why not give it it's own respect & discussion thread.

kipsteele · 2 months ago

I think you have to look at the venue. On sports, politics, or game sites, issues like First and other comments have been an issue for years. Fanboys and haters always find a way to circumvent.

I'm a BIG fan of multiple sentences to any post that I read. It's like going to a conference on a topic. It attracts people who have like interest and the lunch or post conference happy hours tend to have really cool discussions that involve the main topical thread. People will circumvent if you put a minimum requirement to what people post. I like to add when I like something but would also like a different scale system so I can also say when I don't like something(hello Facebook). Maybe a star system so I can give some sort of quick feedback.
I'd also like to have the chance to get a synopsis on posts that I commented on, especially if they get lots of response, it would be great to get the top 10 liked comments/diggs/farked/etc.

im2b_dl · 2 months ago

Fred I will say this... in my history of meetings and work...one commonality between the people's who contributed large successful ventures to my industry ( spielberg, spelling, redford, figgis, lynch etc etc) that I learned from numerous meetings with them... they allread lots of other people's "drivel" as one or two commenters on here referred to anyone that they saw as below them... that is an attitude I saw often in MBA's that just wanted to get famous and rich in network and studio corporate ladders... discovery of "greatness" and "great ideas" is rarely found at the top... but laziness and arrogance can be usually with/on the way down.

fredwilson · 2 months ago

That is soooooo true. I thought it was my secret though

im2b_dl · 2 months ago

I would have put you on the list...lol...definitively. but we 've never met and you don't work in make-up, kleeg lights or grip work... ; ) BTW- If the smarts of small group dialectic research is a Wilson secret you suck at keeping it.. ; ) You and Ted Hope (on the film side) admirable examples. imho

Venkat · 2 months ago

I write long blog posts and write long comments in general. It might seem like it ought to be a personal preference (whether it is someone like you who skims broadly with 'get to the point' filters on, or someone like me, who likes to get deeply into issues), but it is not just that.

Some topics just take length, longer engagement and deeper conversation. You filter those out, you end up with shallow, superficial and ultimately low-value positions on those topics. Superstring theory and healthcare are obvious examples, but the most dangerous ones are the ones for which there are plausible but dumb "quick and dirty positions" that tempt people.

In other words, you are not choosing to read/write long or short. You are choosing what topics to understand/not understand. So long as you are aware and okay with those choices, it's fine :)

Adrian Ionel · 2 months ago

As long as the comment has 'meaningful content' brevity is better. My guess is short comments are more likely to boil down to 'I agree! (or disagree!)' which adds no value; and distorts the statistics.

Derek Tumolo · 2 months ago

I like how Wired does it. They trim each comment to about two lines, and add a ... which will expand ajaxy to show the full comment.

It's a nice happy medium between short, uninformative comments, and a long page that takes forever to read. Think of it like a headline or abstract for commenting.

JLM · 2 months ago

OK,soooooooooooooooo, size matters?

David Semeria · 2 months ago

I'm reliably informed that font width is actually the key...

dantes1985 · 2 months ago

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daryn · 2 months ago

Whenever I start to ramble (which is often) I try to be objective and decide if I'm adding value to the original post, or telling my own story. If it's the latter, it's great fodder for a response/reblog instead, and I'll keep my comment short -- perhaps linking to my new post if it's relevant.

Josh Fraser · 2 months ago

I agree. Often, less is more.

Jason Preston · 2 months ago

I am always a fan of brevity. If you can say it in fewer words, do so.

This analysis probably breaks down at what the definition of a "good comment" is.

RacerRick · 2 months ago

Short is better.

OMA · 2 months ago

Good writing (in my mind) is the result of repeated removal of redundant parts to create short understandable messages.

I hate the "I totally agree with the above post" comments.

I guess the percent of deleted characters in the message correlates to the message's quality.
I wish someone will provide the measurement tool.

terrycojones · 2 months ago

Is there a prize for noticing that Fred is not commenting on this post?

JeremiahKane · 2 months ago

It seems like Fred comments in batches for each post. I would be currious how often/for how long a comment section gets revisited after the original post. It seems like if you don't get you comments in on day one or two you miss the Fred reply window. Of course few blogs have this window because the authors usually don't take the time to respond in such a comprehensive way.

fredwilson · 2 months ago

I read every comment eventually. But it is true that as the discussion dies down, I tend to engage less

fredwilson · 2 months ago

I am now. That say I posted this was a crazy day from the minute I hit publish to when I hit the pillow, I literally had no time to look at my blackberry and wade into the comments. It bugged me all day

Carl Rahn Griffith · 2 months ago

One of the best management courses I attended many moons ago was simply entitled 'Effective Writing' - our mentor was a former Editor of The London Evening Standard, Mr Tom Pinder - a wonderful character. He very much advocated the importance of simply and clearly conveying the essence of the story, avoiding the use of pretentious, lengthy words - ie, good old 'K I S S' - Keep It Simple, Stupid.

As one Winston Churchill put it: "Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words best of all." ... he was a pretty good communicator.

That's the (enforced) beauty of Twitter and when using (eg) Disqus sparingly - reminding us all how to precis a message. There's an awful lot of pompous, pretentious egos out there and you can spot them a mile off in these new media channels. I avoid them like the plague.

fredwilson · 2 months ago

That's an interesting assertion carl. How exactly do the new media channels suss out pomposity?

Yule Heibel · 2 months ago

Pfff... I write long comments (which I usually edit carefully, on my knees to Strunk & White), so pardon me for disagreeing with those who might pursue an algorithm for determining correct comment length. It really all depends, imo.

fredwilson · 2 months ago

I wonder if Pfff would have done the trick here Yule. That was good

mark donovan · 2 months ago

If you read the research and look at the context it's clearly and Apples and Oranges comparison: YouTube v. Metafilter.

YouTube, for the most part, is about short clips and the reaction to those clips tends to emotive, off the cuff, and typically adds very little to the experience of the content, which is the video.

Metafilter, a site I've been delighted to be a part of since 2001, is a moderated, conversational community. There are arguably two ways to engage with Metafilter: (1) view it as a place to simply find links representing the "best of the Web" and/or (2) view it as a place to discuss those links and the topics/issues raised by them.

Many of the best thread on MeFi have extensive and lengthy comments . . . because unlike YouTube it's a place for participation and conversation and not simply spectating and consumption.

fredwilson · 2 months ago

Great point.

Lukas Mathis · 2 months ago

I don't compare YouTube to MetaFilter. The conclusion that longer comments tend to be better is based on the MetaFilter data alone. Quoting myself:

"Looking at MetaFilter comments, there seems to be a clear correlation between comment quality and comment length."

Sean Kelly · 2 months ago

If twitter is any guide to the atomisation of communications then comments are headed that way as well. Short and sweet!

Andy Swan · 2 months ago

It takes effort to be pithy....and, it will improve your social life.

Charlie Crystle · 2 months ago

substance over style. let the comments flow. substance over style. let the comments flow. substance over style. let the comments flow. substance over style. let the comments flow. substance over style. let the comments flow. substance over style. let the comments flow. substance over style. let the comments flow. substance over style. let the comments flow. substance over style. let the comments flow. substance over style. let the comments flow. substance over style. let the comments flow. substance over style. let the comments flow. substance over style. let the comments flow.

Lukas Mathis · 2 months ago

"Because I am not sure I agree. I think blog posts should be short and sweet and I think comments should be as well."

I don't think you actually disagree with me, even though you imply that you do. I'm not saying that comments shouldn't be succinct. I'm merely pointing out that longer comments seem to be better, on average.

I'm not at all advocating that people write long comments.

fredwilson · 2 months ago

I'm so glad you stopped by and joined the conversation Lukas. You started a really good one here as you can see

Lukas Mathis · 2 months ago

Yeah, I'm following the thread here. Good points. I especially like the xkcd strip :-)

dcilea · 2 months ago

We live in a 140 character world. I prefer comments to be brief. If one is compelled to wax poetic, they may want to consider posting something more indepth on their blog with the appropriate link attribution.

P. K. · 2 months ago

This reminds me of this: http://xkcd.com/406/ .

Roger Toennis · 2 months ago

Though I Tweet extensively you can't distill every human concept to Cliffs Notes and hope to retain its full character. As human life goes through periods of complex social evolution so do the depth of the thought processes necessary to navigate it. Though the Cliffs Notes of "A Tale of Two Cities" are fine its also worth going back and actually reading the book for an experience not available from a skim of the Wikipedia summary.

This situation is not an either/or choice but a polarity to be managed. Balance in this polarity is the ability to appreciate both the incisive 140 character distillation of a concept as well as the ability to dig in and appreciate a deep investigation of a topic.

We should all challenge ourselves and our mental capacities in balancing our appreciation of the two approaches and not reject one or the other.

Emeri Gent [Em] · 2 months ago

I have read short comments that are attention harakiri by comma and death by paragraph full stop.

[Em]

r4i software · 2 weeks ago

well...i never thought about this stuff. I am always asking or suggesting in comments. I never think about length of comment. How anybody decide the length of it. it always depend upon the subject and the person's thought and knowledge. i